Will these spells break my game? (Summon Item, Quick Casting)


Homebrew and House Rules


For campaign-specific reasons, I'm considering giving one of the PC's in my current game (an 8th-level witch) access to the following spells. The players in the campaign are very good optimizers, so if there's a way to break the game with these spells they'll find it.

My questions are:

1. Do the spell levels of these spells seem appropriate? I'd like for these spells to be powerful (i.e. top tier) for their levels, but not overpowered.

2. Will these spells break my game? That is, are they so good that I'll need to nerf them later to keep the game balanced?

Here are the spells:

Summon Item
Level: Witch 2
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: V, S, M
Duration: 1 round/level

This spell summons any one item (mundane or magical) with a value of up to 1000 gp/level. The item appears in your hand, and must be small and light enough for you to carry.

Though these are the only restrictions on the summoned item, the item must be in exactly the same condition when the spell expires as it was when it was summoned. Swords must be wiped clean of blood, shields must not be dented, and so forth. Consumable items cannot be consumed, no power with a limited number of uses per day may be used, and charged items must not have any charges expended. Failure to adhere to these guidelines will lead to [extremely negative campaign-specific consequences].

Quick Casting
Level: Witch 4
Casting Time: 1 round
Components: V, S, M
Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: 1 round/level

Once during the duration of this spell, you may cast any one spell you have memorized as a free action, even if it is not your turn. This spell must have a casting time of 1 round or less, and cannot be enhanced with any metamagic feats or other effects. A single spellcaster cannot make use of quick casting more than once in a 24-hour period.


Quick Casting is borked. Its closest companion is Contingency, which is a 6th level spell. Contingency lasts longer, but Quick Casting is far more flexible. 6th is much more balanced spot for it than 4th.

Summon Item's gold cap should be lowered-- I'd go either 750 or 500 per level. The ability to summon whatever you need is very powerful.


Thanks for your comments! Looking it over again, I think I agree with you on decreasing the gp limit for summon item.

kestral287 wrote:
Quick Casting is borked. Its closest companion is Contingency, which is a 6th level spell. Contingency lasts longer, but Quick Casting is far more flexible. 6th is much more balanced spot for it than 4th.

That's a good comparison with contingency, but I'd rather not increase the level so much, since the PC's won't gain access to 6th-level spells for a while.

Do you think quick casting would be more balanced if I restricted it to 1st-level spells?


Does Summon Item have a range limit? Or make it like Summon Monster and you just get a copy of the item...

Quick Casting as written is a lot better than any spell of less than 6th level. Possible nerfs include restricting the level of the castable spell (as you suggest) or making it use an immediate action, or changing the duration to a flat 3 rounds. 3 is just short enough for a player to think it might run out before it's used, but 2 or 4 could be tried. Or apply a combination of these.


I think you have to decrease the gold piece limit even further. It is a level 3 spell that makes Damage reduction adamantine obsolent. You have a spell that can be wanded cheaply to always have the item you need. Be it a battering ram, any weapon and more. You meet a lich, here is your mithral warhammer, iron golem adamantium greatsword... etc.
Quick casting... Do not let me get started on that. Counterspelling, Destroying line of sight on a whim, you open another pandoras box here!


Okay, I clearly have to rethink all of this.


To be fair, bypassing most material DRs is downright easy. And there's some action costs involved in that, in that the Witch is making the item and then (I would think) passing it off to the martial. And heavens help you if the target isn't dead in the few rounds you have at lower levels.

The Witch is currently 8th level, so 8 rounds. Standard action to create the mithril warhammer, then we probably need another standard action to pass it to the Fighter (though the Fighter could do take it himself-- my assumption is that we'd just work this as an automatic success on a Steal maneuver). Call it seven rounds of availability.

You're probably going to want a Standard Action to wipe off any blood, gore, etc. Now we're down to six. And then we need to pass it back to the Witch at the end, so possibly five. Five-six rounds of actual combat time... better hope that lich didn't bring any friends.

Combat isn't really where the spell worried me because of all this, it's all the non-combat uses.


Looking through the magic items, it seems like a bigger problem with 1000 gp/level is that at 9th level the witch would be able to summon a bane weapon of the appropriate type for basically every encounter. Not only is this probably too much extra damage for a 4th-level spell, but the barbarian almost wouldn't need an expensive weapon of his own anymore. Really, the biggest problem here is that having the witch summon a weapon for the barbarian every battle just comes off as kind of silly.

I'm not quite as concerned about the players bypassing DR, which would still be a problem at 500 gp/level. Giving players the ability to bypass virtually any DR isn't exactly game-wrecking -- only a small percentage of encounters involve significant DR, and I could either steer clear of those or send them against the party on purpose to make them feel powerful.

The quick casting spell seems to have more serious issues, and I'll need to think about how to rework this spell to be significantly more balanced while still retaining the flavor I want. (I haven't included the actual flavor I'll be using in either of the spell descriptions above, just the mechanics.)


I have my own version of summon item, created for synergy with my Settlement sub-system. It is, however, severely restricted in type and preparation time:

To summon an item, it must not only be owned by you, but it must also be in a specially attuned vault--the vault does not cost anything exceptional, but it is in a place specified and (presumably) owned by you, and when unsummoned, it remains in said vault.
There is also an upper gp limit of about 150 gp/caster level, with a writ specifying the item to be shunted via dimensional magic, which requires the caster to haul around with them several scrolls.

However, with these restrictions, the spell exists on a spell level of 4, and it manages to keep the campaign world relevant, as thieves love to find these 'mage vaults' filled with magical items, and said writs can be given as gifts or to finance creating buildings or supplying armies.

SUMMON RESOURCES
School Conjuration (Summoning); Level Divine 4, Arcane 4
Casting Time 1 hour
Components V, S, DF, M
Range Close
Effect Special (see text)
Duration Instantaneous
Saving Throw None; Spell Resistance No
DESCRIPTION
This spell grants the caster the ability to summon resources from a specially-attuned vault. You summon 125 gp/caster level worth of resources, which may be converted to Settlement resources: For this purpose, 1 resource of food is instead 1 crate of food that contains 50 Food Points, 1 resource of Wealth is ¼ a Wealth Point, etc.

Material Component: An authorized and authentic writ of withdrawal from the vault. This can be forged and magically attuned with Illusionary Script or any Symbol spell, and the forged paper is considered attuned, while the spell’s normal affects do not take place. The DC to forge a writ is equal to 25 + 1 per every 125 in value. The vault records false transactions.


Even first level spells are broken as hell with Quick Casting.

BRB lemme cast True Strike as a Free action so this Disintegrate doesn't miss.

It's free Quicken. But better. And without the spell level adjustment.


Quick Casting

Rule 1: No more than 2 spells a round for PCs (normal and quickened/swift).
Rule 2: Don't break Rule 1. (Ignoring contingency)

Actually that is not a bad fix for quick casting: Make it at least a lvl 6 spell, it can only "quicken" a spell 5 levels lower than it and it must use a swift action instead. Also it can be worded such that its duration expires when the swift spell is cast.

Summon Item
What is instant summons?

Personally, I think instant summons is a wee bit high level for what it does... but then again, the item does come from anywhere.

The danger of a toolbox spell like this is that it marginalizes other similar spells like fabricate and major creation, or versatile weapon. I am not saying those spells are particularly used before, but they are more tool-boxy.

My main issue with summon item is its very non-specific consequences for failing to return the item in the correct state. This is why the summon resources spell above is a better design: not only are the items actually yours to begin with (rather than "borrowing" them) but you will only get what you actually put in requiring a bit more planning.


Perhaps for Quick Casting, add a restriction that you may not cast any spells for one round after activating it. Also, make it an immediate action to use.


The problem with summon item is that the GM is going to be asking characters to stop fighting and clean the weapon.
1: The characters can't track rounds like the players.
2: It kills believability if all action stops to tidy up borrowed weapons.

Quick Casting has shown me why metamagic should be a feat, not a spell.
Look at my topics Savage Mage and Magic Flash.

Quick and dirty Casting.(Metamagic)
You cast a spell quickly, but you set off a random magic flash.
Prerequisite: Non-lawful caster, non book memorized spell.
Benefit: Sorcerers and Savage Mages can cast a spell as a swift action. The Random Magic Flash, which could be good or bad, happens 100%. Wild surge or Rod of Wonder charts can be used.
Normal: Sorcerers could not cast quickened spells who's casting time is more than a full round action. Quicken spell adds 4 levels to the spell.
Special: This is a major benefit, so either make it cost a spell level or allow even the most disastrous magic flashes. You should also include the restriction that a caster can use one metamagic feat from their mind, and one from an item, on a spell. This feat is necessary to make a Rod of Wonder, and some more costly rods of wonder grant this feat 3 times a day.

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